1 . The Internet has become part of modern life, bringing convenient services to everyone who can connect. While it seems hard to live without the Internet, it also brings new problems. For example, individuals, organizations and even governments can become targets of cyber attacks.
The past week marked China's sixth annual Cybersecurity Week, held from Sept 16 to 22 nationwide. The opening ceremony and major activities were held in Tianjin. First launched in 2014, the event was designed to raise public awareness of the importance of fighting online threats and cyber attacks. The theme of this year's event is "cybersecurity for the people and by the people".
The leaking (泄露）of personal information now stands out. " Efforts should be made to raise people's sense of fulfillment, happiness and security in cyberspace," said President Xi Jinping in an instruction for the event. "The country will safeguard the security of personal information and citizens' legal rights and interests in cyberspace. According to a report from the 2017 China Internet Security Conference, more than 90 percent of Android smartphones for sale in China contained serious safety bugs. Such flaws (缺陷)allow hackers to control entire phones and obtain the users' passwords, bank information and more.
To protect personal information, China issued its first cybersecurity law in June 2017. One key part of this law is meant to protect personal information. It rules that network operators are not allowed to leak, change or damage the personal information they gather. They are also not allowed to give personal information to others freely.
Apart from China, issuing laws to protect personal information and prevent junk electronic information is a common practice in other countries.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the new Internet-based problems. |
| B．To show readers a new Internet-based trend. |
| C．To make a list of new cybercrimes online. |
| D．To call for protection of personal security. |
| A．Android smartphones sales are on the decrease. |
| B．Personal data protection comes into focus. |
| C．Netizens are sensitive to online information. |
| D．Nearly all smartphones contain security flaws. |
| A．Website designers. | B．Illegal hackers. |
| C．Network operators. | D．Internet-based companies. |
| A．Foreign practices to safeguard cybersecurity. |
| B．Countries producing laws of national security. |
| C．Effective ways to deal with personal security. |
| D．Advice on how to avoid leaking personal data. |
2 . London Transport Museum
Explore how London’s growth, culture and society I have ben intertwined (交织) wit it transport system, from 1800 to today.
What is there to see at the museum?
Follow the development of the red London bus, se the world’s first Underground steam train and examine a train carriage dating back to the 1890s.
Design lovers can be very surprised at the Design for Travel gallery (展览馆), including pioneering advertising posters, artworks and Harry Beck’s first design for his ground-breaking London Underground map.
Get hands-on at interactive galleries, where you can step aboard real buses and trains and have a go on a driving simulator (模拟器).
How can I book tickets to the museum?
Tickets must be booked in advance — book London Transport Museum tickets now.
How long does it take to walk around the museum?
With so many interesting collections to see, you can easily spend at least two hours walking around the museum.
Where is the museum?
It is in Covent Garden Piazza, directly opposite the main Covent Garden Market building.
How to get to the museum
The nearest underground station to the museum is Covent Garden two minutes away. Leicester Square, Holborn, Charing Cross and Embankment are all within 10 minutes’ walk. Charing Cross Railway Station is the closest railway station, which is nine minutes away.
Bus stops on the Strand and Aldwych are a three-minute walk away from the museum.
There are Santander Cycles docking points (自行车停靠点) at Southampton Street and Bow Street, both a three-minute walk from the museum.
Prices
Child (0-17): FREE
Adult: £18.50
Senior (60+): £17.00
1. What do we know about the museum?
| A．It requires advance booking. | B．It was designed by Harry Beck. |
| C．It provides a train design experience. | D．It is in the Covent Garden Market building. |
| A．The bus stop on the Strand. |
| B．Covent Garden Underground Station. |
| C．Charing Cross Railway Station. |
| D．The Santander Cycles docking point at Bow Street. |
| A．£34.00. | B．£35.50. | C．£54.00. | D．£52.50. |
3 . Since our earliest school days, we generally accept the idea that some people learn faster than others. However, according to a new study, we actually learn at very similar rates given the same opportunities.
Researchers looked at 1. 3 million “student interactions” across a variety of learning software tools used by 6, 946 learners, ranging from late elementary students to college students. The gathered statistics covered a variety of learning tasks.
The data showed that academic performance gaps come from differences in the starting point of learning, the learning opportunity and access to such opportunity, rather than any learning rate. “This further confirms that educational technologies can provide favorable learning conditions that make it easier to learn something new, like a second language,” says Ken Koedinger, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.
“We have all seen cases where somebody gets to a learning outcome sooner than a peer,” says Koedinger. “But what we don’t usually track is where they started. Our results are not contradicting that people end up in different places, but accounting for the fact that where students are starting from can tell us a lot about where they will end up.”
The team suggests that our brains can take different “mental routes” to learn something,which means our learning rates aren’t too different. Given the same opportunities, we can all get to the same point in the way that best suits our experiences and knowledge.
This is useful in figuring out the best ways to pass on knowledge. Though many factors work together when it comes to learning, the researchers want to emphasize that we’re all capable of learning.
“No matter who you are, you can make it,”says scientist Paulo Carvalho from CarnegieMellon University. “You might have had fewer prior opportunities in your life, so it may be harder at first than it is for other people. But you will make just as much progress as anyone else as long as you hold on to your learning.”
1. How did the researchers carry out their study?| A．By doing online surveys. |
| B．By introducing a concept. |
| C．By collecting data on learners. |
| D．By conducting experiments. |
| A．The learning rate. |
| B．The learning outcome. |
| C．The learning task. |
| D．The learning opportunity. |
| A．Stick to our learning goals wherever we start. |
| B．Take different routes to learn something new. |
| C．Try every means to increase our learning rate. |
| D．Seek learning opportunities at a very young age. |
| A．How Can You Learn Something Faster? |
| B．What Is Behind Your Learning Progress? |
| C．Why Is The Achievement Gap Growing? |
| D．Where Is Our Starting Point Of Learning? |
4 . White chocolate, German chocolate, ice cream: There are hundreds of types of birthday cake in the world, each beautiful in its own sugary way. You are likely to enjoy one during at least one (hopefully all) of your birthday parties. But in between delicious bites of cake, have you ever stopped and wondered, “Why am I eating this? What makes this dessert fit to celebrate the day of my birth?”
It’s because you are as important and beloved as the gods. Kind of.
The ancient Egyptians are thought to have “invented” the celebration of birthdays. They believed when pharaohs (法老) were crowned, they became gods, so their coronation (加冕) day was a pretty big deal. That was their “birth” as a god.
Ancient Greeks borrowed the tradition, but realized that a dessert would make the celebration all the more meaningful. So they baked moon-shaped cakes to offer up to Artemis, goddess of the moon. They decorated them with lighted candles to make the cakes shine like the moon. Hence, it is the reason why we light our birthday cakes on fire.
Modern birthday parties are said to get their roots from the 18th century German celebration “Kinderfeste”. On the morning of a child’s birthday, he or she would receive a cake with lighted candles that added up to the kid’s age, plus one. This extra candle was called the “light of life,” representing the hope of another full year lived.
And then, torture — because no one could eat the cake until after dinner. The family replaced the candles as they burned out throughout the day. Finally, when the moment came, the birthday child would make a wish, try to blow out all the candles in one breath, and dig in. Like modern tradition, the birthday girl or boy wouldn’t tell anyone the wish so it would come true.
Since the ingredients (原料) to make cakes were pretty expensive, this birthday custom didn’t become popular until the Industrial Revolution. More ingredients were available, which made them cheaper, and bakeries even started selling pre-baked cakes.
1. What is the passage mainly about?| A．The origin of birthday cakes. | B．The significance of birthday cakes. |
| C．The history of birthday parties. | D．The introduction of cake production. |
| A．Germans. | B．Pharaohs. |
| C．Ancient Greeks. | D．Ancient Egyptians. |
| A．pleasure | B．replacement |
| C．sharing | D．suffering |
| A．The transport was inconvenient. |
| B．The ingredients of cakes were expensive. |
| C．The cake could not be eaten before dinner. |
| D．The bakeries would not sell pre-baked cakes. |
5 . Harbour seals may sound different than expected from their body size. Is this ability related to their vocal (声音的) talents or is it the result of an anatomical (身体结构上的) adaptation? An international team of researchers led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen investigated the vocal tracts of harbour seals, which matched their body size. This means that harbour seals are capable of learning new sounds thanks to their brains rather than their anatomy.
Most animals produce calls that reflect their body size. A larger animal will sound lower-pitched because its vocal tract, the air-filled tube that produces and filters sounds, is longer. But harbour seals do not always sound like they look. They may sound larger —perhaps to impress a rival (对手)—or smaller—perhaps to get attention from their mothers. Are these animals very good at learning sounds (vocal learners), or have their vocal tracts adapted to allow this vocal flexibility?
To answer this question, PhD student Koen De Reus and senior investigator Andrea Ravignani from the MPI worked together with researchers from Sealcentre Pieterburen. The team measured young harbour seals’ vocal tracts and body size. The measurements were taken from 68 young seals (up to twelve months old) who had died. The team also re-analysed previously gathered harbour seal vocalisations to confirm their impressive vocal flexibility.
De Reus and Ravignani found that the length of harbour seals’ vocal tracts matched their body size. There were no anatomical explanations for their vocal skills. Rather, the researchers argue that only vocal learning can explain why harbour seals do not always sound like they look. “Vocal learners will sound different from their body size, but the size of their vocal tracts will match their body size. The combined findings from acoustic (听觉的) and anatomical data may help us to identify more vocal learners,” says de Reus. “Studying different vocal learners may help us to find the biological bases of vocal learning and shed light on the evolution of complex communication systems, such as speech.” “The more we look, the more we see that seals have something to say about human speech capacities.” adds Ravignani.
1. What can we learn from the passage?| A．Harbour seals’ voice matches their body size. |
| B．If harbour seals were in danger, they would sound larger. |
| C．The young harbour seals produce higher-pitched sound than the old. |
| D．Harbour seals have their vocal tracts adapted to allow their vocal flexibility. |
| A．To explain why harbour seals’ voice is flexible. |
| B．To confirm the flexibility of harbour seals’ voice. |
| C．To find out the relation between harbour seals’ vocal tracts and their body size. |
| D．To prove harbour seals are capable of learning new sound because of their anatomy. |
| A．Seals have something to do with humans. |
| B．Studying seals contributes to improving humans speech capacities. |
| C．The more we know about seals’ vocal learning, the better our speech will be. |
| D．The deeper insight into seals’ vocal learning contributes to human speech capacities. |
| A．Harbour Seals’ Voice | B．Harbour Seals’ Vocal Skills |
| C．Harbour Seals’ Vocal Learning | D．Harbour Seals’ Vocal Adaptation |
6 . When we do not understand each other’s language, we can talk with the help of body language.
A Frenchman was once travelling in England. He could not speak English at all.One day he went into a restaurant and sat down at a table. When the waiter came, he opened his mouth, put his fingers in it and took them out again. He wanted to say, “Bring me something to eat.” The waiter soon brought him a cup of tea. The man moved his head from side to side.The waiter understood him and took the tea away. In a moment he came again with a cup of coffee and put it on the table. The man again refused his offer. He shook his head whenever the waiter brought him something to drink. When the man was going away, another man came in. This man saw the waiter,and he put his hands on his stomach. That was enough. In a few minutes there was a large plate of meat and vegetables on the table in front of him.
1. According to the passage,when people do not understand each other’s language,they can talk with the help of .| A．a waiter | B．a translator | C．body language | D．an English-speaker |
| A．to translate the words | B．to tell him what he said |
| C．to bring him a cup of coffee | D．to ask him for food |
| A．a cup of tea, a cup of coffee and a lot of other drinks |
| B．a large plate of meat and vegetables |
| C．a bill of fare |
| D．a piece of paper and a pen for him to write down the words |
| A．people can only understand the language of words |
| B．people can understand each other with the help of the language of signs as well as the language of words |
| C．people can make clear the language of the waiter and the translator |
| D．people can understand the native language |
7 . This morning, before I left for the airport, I had hurt my back. And I could
At that time, a man
A lady walking beside me carried my other case full of things for me. It was obviously
I would have managed to do all of these things on my own, but these well-meaning humans sensed that I needed help and just
| A．exactly | B．eventually | C．rarely | D．regularly |
| A．divided | B．placed | C．slipped | D．turned |
| A．sitting | B．talking | C．walking | D．standing |
| A．assistance | B．money | C．reputation | D．food |
| A．started | B．flew | C．delayed | D．landed |
| A．preferred | B．offered | C．declined | D．failed |
| A．courts | B．doors | C．floors | D．stairs |
| A．get off | B．watch out | C．watch over | D．get back |
| A．luxurious | B．crucial | C．weighty | D．representative |
| A．requested | B．remarked | C．denied | D．kept |
| A．airport | B．plane | C．pump | D．belt |
| A．checked | B．stepped | C．gave | D．cut |
| A．common | B．splendid | C．ambitious | D．difficult |
| A．proud | B．ashamed | C．suspicious | D．grateful |
| A．stranger | B．partner | C．attendant | D．applicant |
8 . Each dog is an individual and will have variances in their personality, meaning that there is no guarantee that the puppy you bring home will be a perfect fit. These are our best recommendations.
Australian Shepherd
Contrary to their name, the Australian Shepherd is actually an American kind. If you are planning to keep larger animals on your homestead, having a shepherd dog to help you control them is a must. Australian Shepherds are quick, light on their feet and highly intelligent.
This rapid intelligence also makes them excellent at trick training if you ever want to branch out and teach them to do other things.
American Labrador
Their love of the outdoors combined with their happy-go-lucky personalities makes them a great match for the homestead lifestyle, which makes them suitable for the elderly at home.
Though they have a love of chasing, Labradors make a great homestead dog as they have a very low chase drive. This means they are incredibly unlikely to chase and injure your animals.
Mastiff
Though they are not as intelligent as some of other kinds on this list, having a Mastiff on your homestead can act as a deterrent (威慑作用) for others. Providing a shelter for your mastiff-type dog to stay outside with your animals will cause any stealers to think twice before entering your property.
Great Pyrenees
Great Pyrenes have a very little desire to dig, so your vegetable patches are safe.
Equally, they have little desire to chase, and so your domestic animals are safe. Their naturally protective nature means they are happy to work as guard dogs, protecting all of them from stealers.
1. What can we know about Australian Shepherds?| A．They like the outdoors. |
| B．They are less intelligent. |
| C．They work as guard dogs. |
| D．They are good at trick training. |
| A．Australian Shepherd. |
| B．American Labrador. |
| C．Mastiff. |
| D．Great Pyrenees. |
| A．They have little desire to chase. |
| B．They love to live with other animals. |
| C．They can help protect your property. |
| D．They get protective skills from humans. |
9 . Take a closer look at the wonders of Kew Gardens by joining a guided walking tour. Led by our knowledgeable volunteer guides, it is a fun and informative way to explore the grounds.
Free daily walking tours
Tours leave at 11 am and 1:30 pm from the information desk at Victoria Gate Plaza. Each guide presents their own tour and takes in the highlights(最精彩的部分) of the season.
Themed tours
Tours leave at 12 from the information desk at Victoria Gate Plaza. Our guides offer attractive seasonal themes including Autumn Colour and Winter Evergreens.
Expert-guided tours
Every Tuesday throughout the year at 11:30 am and 2:30 pm we’ll be holding an expert-guided tour. The tour will feature (以…为特色) a different plant each month and you’ll go behind the Scenes and talk to Kew staff about their work. You’ll find out interesting facts about the featured plant or fungus(真菌), including why it’s grown at Kew and how it’s used and cared for.
Price
The cost is £ 60 per guide (this does not include your entry to the Gardens). Each guide can take 15 people. Groups of more than 15 must book more than one guide. Smaller groups are also accepted but the cost remains £ 60.
Tours take about one hour and may be booked from 10 am every day. Please note that no refunds(退款) can be given once tickets are booked.
1. What time can you choose if you go to Free daily walking tours?| A．9 am. | B．10 am. | C．11 am. | D．2:30 pm. |
| A．People can get in touch with experts ahead of time. |
| B．People have no choice but to go on Tuesday. |
| C．People can be warmly received by the staff. |
| D．People can have a taste of fungus. |
| A．£ 60. | B．£ 120. | C．£ 150. | D．£ 300. |
10 . Is there anybody out there? For centuries humans have wondered although the ways in which we have gone about this have varied. As we have gained a greater understanding of the universe, our searches have taken on more concrete(具体的) forms. Questions about aliens(外星人) have become a subject for science rather than science fiction.
Now new cooperation between the Very Large Array (VLA) observatory in New Mexico and the SETI Institute in California means that our curiosity about whether aliens exist can be closer than ever before to being satisfied. Data from the VLA’S 28 radio telescopes, used to scan a vast area of sky, will be fed through a special supercomputer that will search for distant signals.
How likely it is that a signal will be found, and what this might mean, are hard questions to answer. SETI’s existing projects have not discovered any signals from other planets so far. But recent discoveries in space and Earth sciences have provided some encouragement for those who are enthusiastic about the possibility, however remote, of detecting other civilizations.
Once it was thought that our solar system could be unique. Since the discovery of the first exoplanet (a planet beyond the solar system) in the 1990s, thousands more have been located. Around one in five stars is now thought to have a planet in their orbit(运行轨道) in a so-called “habitable(适合居住的) zone”—that is, at a distance from the star where the temperature means that life is theoretically possible.
Are Earth’s 7.5 billion humans, along with billions of other animals and plants they share their home with, on their own in the universe? If there is another life form somewhere, could it be as intelligent as humans? Or could it threaten them? I think all of these need further exploration. As explorations of Mars continue, and a new set of observations from the James Webb Space Telescope are set to begin, our interest in the possibility of alien life appears as much as before.
1. Why does the VLA work with SETI?| A．To develop new radio telescopes | B．To find evidence of aliens’ existence |
| C．To build a special supercomputer | D．To search for distant signals |
| A．Life does indeed exist on exoplanets |
| B．New technologies are employed to find aliens |
| C．Some exoplanets may have habitable zones |
| D．Signals have been discovered from other planets |
| A．Uncertain | B．Positive | C．Unacceptable | D．Worried |
| A．Space: the unknown place | B．Finding aliens: possible or not? |
| C．Receiving signals: aliens appear again? | D．Exoplanets: home of aliens |
